Court delays execution of gang-rapists
>>NEW DELHI: The hanging of four men scheduled yesterday for a notorious gang-rape and murder on a Delhi bus in 2012 has been postponed “until further orders”, a court ruled on Friday.
The brutal attack on Jyoti Singh sparked weeks of demonstrations and shone a spotlight on the alarming rates of sexual violence and the plight of women in India.
Four men were convicted in 2013 and were due to be hanged simultaneously yesterday at 6am local time in India’s first execution since 2015.
A fifth, the suspected ringleader, was found dead in jail in a suspected suicide, while a 17-year-old accomplice spent three years in a juvenile centre.
The delay was because some of the men still have legal options to appeal their sentences including “mercy petitions” with the Indian president.
All are however widely expected to fail, with support for their execution appearing to be overwhelming within Indian society and among political parties.
Ahead of their executions, the media have been full of gory details including that the nooses will be smeared with a banana to soften them.
Hangman Pawan Kumar, whose father and grandfather were also executioners, has given multiple interviews ahead of what will be his first job.
Singh, 23, was returning home from the cinema with a friend on a Sunday evening in December 2012 when they boarded a Delhi bus, thinking it would take them home.
The five men and one juvenile knocked the friend unconscious and dragged Singh to the back of the bus and raped and tortured her.
The physiotherapy student and the friend were then dumped on the road. Singh died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital after suffering massive internal injuries.